....... has been a ubiquitous presence in my record collection for over 30 years now - since I persuaded my friend Tom P. to let me trade him my John Denver "Rocky Mountain High" LP for his "Fairport Convention" (the 2nd album, aka "What We Did On Our Holidays" - which actually belonged to his sister!), a trade which I for my part, have never found reason to regret...and Tom's sister forgave him, eventually.
I've seen him live more often than any other performer over the years, both solo acoustic and with big electric bands - and he just keeps getting better somehow.
And I often forget just how great he is! I have his new CD, "Sweet Warrior" - but hardly listen to it, after all this time it's just - yet another collection of profound and heartfelt lyrics, brilliant guitar playing and singing, perfect folk and rock'n'roll songs arranged and performed with passion and skill, yeah, he's a living legend...yawn.
To be honest, though I still run to see his live shows at every opportunity, I look forward to his more experimental, one-off projects nowadays - for instance, the recent "1,000 Years of Popular Music" tour de force (there's a brief description, here: http://www.richardthompson-music.com/1000yrs.asp), the all-instrumental trad folk record "Strict Tempo!", his 80s collaborations with David Thomas of Pere Ubu, and the French/Frith/Kaiser/Thompson records. He keeps talking about doing an album of Persian traditional music someday...
Anyhow I didn't intend to write a whole essay about RT - it's been done too well, by too many others! I was just jolted out of complacency this morning by this BBC documentary which someone very helpfully uploaded to YouTube, in seven parts - which gives a glimpse of who he is, the long and varied career. Haven't seen 'em all, I AM at work! But the first two are great.
I hope someone reading this has never heard of Richard and/or Linda, because YOU my friend are in for a most pleasant surprise!
There's scads of Richard's stuff, but not a whole lot of quality film of Richard with Linda on YouTube, that I could find - except this, that is,
A Heart Needs A Home (Old Grey Whistle Test, 1975)
A Solitary Life BBC doc(part 1/7)
(one day later - so funny, in one of the later segments, RT's wife Nancy Covey says something about living with an occasionally withdrawn, anorak husband - "It's not like living with John Denver.")
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